Closing Arguments
by KADH
Summary: There are only three things standing between Gil Grissom and his going after Sara – paperwork, politics and Conrad Ecklie. So he comes up with a creative way to get time off. He gets himself suspended.


**Closing Arguments**

There were only three things standing between Gil Grissom and his finally going after Sara – paperwork, politics and Conrad Ecklie. So he comes up with a creative way to get time off.

He gets himself suspended.

_Part of the Time series. Follows "The Good Fight" and takes places post season eight,_

circa the end of January 2009

* * *

Gil Grissom marched into Conrad Ecklie's office, his hastily scribbled request form in hand.

He looked rather discomposed, as if the long months following Sara's departure had aged him in years. They had. But Grissom felt for the first time in a long time, both sure and resolved. He not only knew exactly what he was going to do and how he was going to do it, but also what the most likely outcome of his actions would be.

There had to be some benefit to having to work with Ecklie for all those years.

For his part, the Assistant Lab Director barely looked up when Grissom shoved the form down in the center of his desk.

"Sign it," Grissom said without greeting or preamble.

"Good Morning to you too, Gil," Ecklie replied, cool and nonchalant as always. "And thanks for knocking, by the way."

"Conrad, I don't have time to play around, just sign it," Grissom hissed.

Ecklie gave the _Approval for Vacation Time Request Form_ a cursory once over.

"I'm sorry, Gil, I can't," he answered with a dismissive shake of the head. Without another glance, he removed Grissom's sheet from the files he was in the process of reviewing. "You know departmental policy. Vacation time has to be requested at least two weeks in advance."

Grissom retrieved the form, held it in his hand for a moment and appeared as if he was going to retreat. At least that was what Ecklie seemed to expect him to do, because he almost jumped when Grissom thrust the paper back onto the paperwork pile and snapped uncharacteristically, "Screw departmental policy. This is important."

"What?" Ecklie asked frostily. "Finally going to go after that whack job of a girlfriend of yours? I told you she was a loose canon -- did you listen to me? No." He shook his head dismissively, gave a snort of amusement and then went back to work. "You know I should have realized at the time that something was going on between the two of you. You 'needed' her. Isn't that what you said? I bet you did," he said with a dry, humorless laugh. "Is that why you wouldn't fire her, because you two were sleeping together? Or, was she so thankful you saved her sorry ass that she slept with you as payback, Gil?"

Grissom took a deep breath. He had always known that Ecklie had a tendency to be rather crass, so his boss's attitude didn't surprise him. That didn't mean that the words didn't rile. But Grissom knew he had to keep his temper if he was ever going to get Conrad to act according to plan.

So he maintained a careful, measured and ever even tone as he replied, "We've known each other a long time, so when you insult me, it doesn't really matter. But let me make one thing very clear --" Grissom laid both palms on Ecklie's desk and leaned forward, deliberately invading his superior's personal space. "If you ever say anything like that about Sara again..."

"You'll what, Gil?" Conrad queried, meeting his eyes for the first time.

"I've been a CSI for over twenty years," he began serenely. "You don't think I don't know how to get rid of a body?"

Ecklie's dark eyes narrowed, "Are you threatening me, _Supervisor_ _Grissom_?"

Grissom smiled, but it wasn't a warm smile or even a pleasant one. "Of course not," he replied, standing up straight again.

The assistant director returned his attention to the case files on his desk and said contemptuously, "I have a lot to do here. If you revise your request for two weeks from now, I'll _consider_ approving it."

"_Consider_?" Grissom asked with a raised brow. "I have twenty-four weeks of vacation time on the books, Conrad. I earned that time and now I want to take it."

Ecklie very purposely and deliberately signed his name with his usual flourish on the topmost sheet of his pile before moving it into his _out_ tray and beginning to peruse the next folder.

"You know I have to put the needs of the lab above any one individual's personal needs," he replied after a few moments, his voice practically dripping with the same patronizing tone he loved to use to lord over the people he supervised.

"Is that what you were thinking about when you demanded that Sara and I switch shifts? _The good of the lab_?"

"Policy is policy, you know that," Ecklie maintained.

"Really?" Grissom queried almost as if in disbelief. "So that's how you like to run things -- _policy_ over people?"

Ecklie shrugged. "I can't make exceptions," he explained evenly. "It's a slippery slope -- once you do it for one person, you have to do it for everyone or people with accuse you of favoritism."

Grissom's tone turned frosty. "Favoritism is the last thing anyone around here would accuse you of, Conrad."

Ecklie's response was equally cool, disdainful and direct, "You should be happy I didn't fire the both of you."

Grissom nodded appreciatively. With that, Ecklie seemed to think the matter settled, resolved and closed.

He couldn't have been more mistaken.

"Tell me something," Grissom began after a long moment. His next words were carefully couched in a disparaging tone that he very seldom used with anyone and certainly never used with his boss, but if he was going to be accused of insubordination, he would actually have to behave in a blatantly recalcitrant manner. Halfway measures wouldn't be enough -- Ecklie was not a man to understand subtlety, a fact Grissom knew far too well. So with as much venom as he could believably muster, he surlily inquired, "Were you more upset that we violated the lab's _no dating in the workplace_ policy or that we did it for two years right under your nose and you never figured it out?"

Ecklie rustled the papers on his desk noisily in reply.

Something Grissom regarded as a very good sign.

"Of course, you never were the sharpest criminalist, were you?" He continued, his temper seemingly getting the better of him, though in reality he was as calm and collected and patiently deliberate as usual. "You always were putting your conclusions before the science and then making the science fit."

The paper rustling grew louder. Grissom knew he had struck yet another nerve.

"But failure never was a problem for you, was it?" He queried coldly. "You'd rather be quick and wrong than slow and right." Grissom paused to let the full derision implicit in his words sink in before continuing, "You know I think Sara had it right when she said you failed your way to the top."

"_Gil_," Ecklie hissed in warning, one Grissom had no intention of heeding.

"What? Is the truth that offensive?" Grissom asked curiously. When Ecklie made no reply, he nodded sagely and continued, "So that's why you put her on suspension that time. It wasn't because of the case, or the suspect or even that argument with Catherine.

"Hell, we've all done it -- gotten carried away -- lost our tempers. While I don't disagree that the reprimand was well deserved, I'm not so sure the suspension was. But the suspension had nothing to do with all that, did it? It was because she insulted you."

Conrad Ecklie said nothing; in fact, he made no motion at all. Even the whisper of paper shuffling had ceased, but Grissom could tell his boss was internally fuming, which was precisely the response he had been hoping to instigate in the first place.

All the man needed was one more push. One that Gil Grissom was only too happy to provide.

"Sounds like you do occasionally put the _personal_ over the good of the lab."

That did it.

"You're suspended, _Supervisor Grissom_, one week, no pay," Ecklie barked, more livid than Grissom had ever seen him.

"Fine," Grissom answered blithely, utterly unconcerned by the severe penance placed upon him.

"And this incident is going into your permanent record," Conrad continued angrily.

"Fine."

"And I expect a written apology from you on my desk before you come back."

Grissom had a hard time controlling the grin that twitched at the corners of his mouth when he replied, trying very hard to at least sound convincing, "Then you better make that suspension last until hell freezes over."

"That's it," Ecklie snapped, slamming the file on his desk shut noisily. "_Two_ weeks. And if you don't leave my office now, we'll make it permanent."

Grissom left the office without further protest, although he did pause at the doorway for one last look at Ecklie's furious face before he said amiably and with a curt nod of the head, "Thank you, Conrad."

His plan had worked out just as he knew it would. He vaguely supposed that he should feel slightly guilty for unabashedly manipulating Ecklie, but the man had always been such a pompous and self-important ass, that Grissom thought he wasn't worth wasting even a small measure of regret on. Besides, he had more important things to do now that he was officially off the clock for two whole weeks.

He was so intent on getting back to his own office as quickly as possible that he nearly plowed into Greg and Nick in the hallway as he turned the corner. He absentmindedly mumbled a brief and hurried apology before striding over the threshold into his workspace.

"Hey, boss, where's the fire?" Nick asked bemusedly as he and Greg followed him inside.

Grissom paused in the act of removing his coat from its respective hook, turned and unable to contain his grin any longer, said, "Tell Catherine she's supervisor for the next two weeks."

"What?" They both chorused, confused at their boss's curiously buoyant demeanor. They hadn't seen him smile like that in months and Nick for one couldn't fathom why he would be beaming in such an obviously pleased way now. Greg, however, knew better.

"Ecklie just put me on a two week suspension," Grissom answered simply, hastily tugging on his jacket and picking up his briefcase. "So she's in charge."

"You got suspended?" Nick stammered dumbfounded. "What for?"

Instead of replying, Grissom merely dug into his jacket pockets for his keys and patted his coat for his wallet.

"Look, guys," he said, confident he had everything he needed. "I gotta go. Could you just turn off the lights and close the door on your way out?"

His abrupt exit left both men stunned and speechless.

Then Nick turned to Greg and said with a low, soft whistle and a shake of the head, "Man, I've never seen anyone so happy to be suspended in my life."

Greg grinned broadly and sighed, "Yeah, well it took him long enough."

_Series continued in "Reconciliation."_


End file.
